Gustav Fischer

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This article is about the explorer, not the German publisher of the same name, Gustav Fischer (publisher) [de], who founded Gustav Fischer Verlag [de] (not S. Fischer Verlag of Samuel von Fischer and Gottfried Bermann). For others, see Fischer.

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Gustav Adolf Fischer (March 3, 1848 - November 11, 1886, Berlin) was a German explorer born at Barmen.

In 1876 he accompanied the Denhardt East Africa exploring expedition to Zanzibar, where he settled as a physician, and in the following year explored Wituland and the southern Oromo country. In 1878 he continued his journey to Wapokomoland and along the Tana River to Massa. With the support of the Geographical Society of Hamburg he visited the Maasai country in 1882 and penetrated from the mouth of the Pagani River to Lake Naivasha. The Maasai prevented him from advancing further. Equipped with funds by the brother of Junker, an explorer, who with Emin Pasha and Gaetano Casati had been lost in the equatorial provinces, he organized a relief expedition which, however, was compelled to return after reaching Lake Victoria. Shortly after his return to Germany in 1886 he died of a bilious fever contracted during his journey.

He is commemorated in the names of a number of animals, including Fischer's Lovebird, Agapornis fischeri.

[edit] Literary works

• He wrote articles in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie and in the Verhandlungen of the Hamburg Geographical Society;
• Mehr Licht im dunkeln Weltteil (1885);
• Das Masai-Land (1885);

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.